Who Owns Comic Art Copyright -Can Artists Sell Their Pages?

An artist contact posted this on Face Book and it is a question I hear a lot. 

"Can some of my artist friends explain the difference between working on pages and commissions?
Has a publisher ever asked you to keep the art for them to sell at a later date? Have you ever been asked to split the proceeds of original art?"

Yep, under law the original art is yours -selling original pages is how some artists carry on eating. In the internet age and with scanners the publisher does not need the original art. If they do for some reason you need an undertaking it will be returned. You DO NOT have to split any money from selling original art.

 I should point out that Commissions such as "Here's $80 for a Captain America sketch" means that the person who commissioned it paid for it so the original is theirs. Simple. You can, as part of a portfolio, use that commissioned piece.  Printing off 50 copies of it to sell afterwards....up to your conscience but if people who collect and pay for commissioned art think you are going to do this and "devalue" their original you may find others do not want to commission pieces from you.

Incidentally, if the comic art pages contain characters owned by someone else write on the back "characters (c) -who ever" and "Artwork (c) date/your name" because, even if those characters belong to a company you are selling YOUR original art not theirs.